Not the least wonderful thing about Blake and his life was the manner of his leaving it, much as he had pictured it in the 'Good Man' above and elsewhere - though it must be said that Blake's own attitude towards death was very different from the overall tone of Blair's poem. For him it was more of an adventure, a plunge into light rather the dark. So confident was he of his visions that he seemed almost eager to enter fully into them, regretting only separation from his wife Katherine. Here's how Allan Cunningham described his final days in Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects (John Murray, London 1830):
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"He had reached his seventy-first year, and the strength of nature was fast yielding. Yet he was to the last cheerful and contented. 'I glory,' he said, 'in dying, and have no grief but in leaving you, Katherine; we have lived happy, and we have lived long; we have been ever together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death? nor do I fear it. I have endeavoured to live as Christ commands, and have sought to worship God truly - in my own house when I was not seen of men.' He grew weaker and weaker - he could no longer sit upright; and was laid in his bed, with no one to watch over him save his wife, who, feeble and old herself, required help in such a touching duty.
"The Ancient of Days was such a favourite with Blake, that three days before his death, he sat bolstered up in bed and tinted with his choicest colours and in his happiest style. He touched and retouched it - held it at arm's-length, and then threw it from him, exclaiming, 'There! that will do! I cannot mend it.' He saw his wife in tears - she felt this was to be the last of his works - 'Stay, Kate! (cried Blake) keep just as you are - I will draw your portrait - for you have ever been an angel to me' - she obeyed, and the dying artist made a fine likeness.
"The very joyfulness with which this singular man welcomed the coming of death, made his dying moments intensely mournful. He lay chaunting songs, and the verses and the music were both the offspring of the moment. He lamented that he could no longer commit those inspirations, as he called them, to paper. 'Kate,' he said, 'I am a changing man - I always rose and wrote down my thoughts, whether it rained, snowed, or shone, and you arose too and sat beside me - this can be no longer.' He died on the 12 of August 1828 without any visible pain - his wife, who sat watching him, did not perceive when he ceased breathing."
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As Blake died almost destitute, his young friend and occasional
patron John Linnell took Katherine on as a housekeeper, also taking
charge of all his unsold works. Linnell, incidentally, is the one who
commissioned Blake's masterpiece engravings for The Book of Job,
which astonished even his critics at the time because of his mastery of the medium.
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